A curious piece of apocalyptic science fiction, Thomas Vinterberg’s It’s All About Love (horrendous title, that) features Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes as a married couple who couldn’t be further from the white trash hellraisers they portrayed in Oliver Stone‘s U Turn; he’s an academic and she’s a champion ice skater, and their plans for divorce are sidetracked when she ends up being kidnapped. It sounds like a familiar enough story of reconciliation via sudden crisis, but it’s all set in July 2021 in a world on the brink of total cosmic collapse: New York City is covered in snow, the laws of gravity seem to no longer apply in Africa and people’s hearts just randomly give out — meanwhile, another U Turn alum, Sean Penn, flies above in an airplane, pondering the meaning of it all. A troubled film, to say the least — universally panned and even disowned by some of its stars (Danes reportedly burst into tears upon seeing the final product) — but we find it fascinating and, if nothing else, noble in its ambitions. This is the work of a talented director who just can’t quite figure out how he’s going to follow up his excellent Dogme95 offering, The Celebration, and he deserves credit for not taking the easy way out.
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New On Netflix: It’s All About Love